Facebook has changed the
way we communicate and interact with friends. It has opened up vast
opportunities to connect with old friends and also make new friends online. In
this fashion, Facebook has enlarged our world to a great extent.
It is not something
surprising today, for us to be more familiar with people whom we periodically
interact on facebook, rather than our close set of friends and relatives, who
are not on facebook. It is because a lot of sharing is happening in this virtual
world, as compared to the real world. Those who are not in the list of our
facebook contacts don’t get to know as much as our friends who are in facebook.
For instance, during the
days when we were clicking photos in film roll camera, we anxiously waited for
the photo to be processed and printed. We then put them on an album and when
our friends or relatives, came home, we showed it to them and took pleasure in
explaining each photo in detail. The people who viewed the photos also took a
keen interest in knowing more about the event or place. But now, things have
changed. You click the photo on your mobile phone camera, press the share
button and in seconds it is on our facebook page. Within 10 seconds, you get a
‘like’ for the photo or a comment such as
‘nice’ , ‘wow’ , ‘super’ from your facebook friend. This instant
gratification, makes people happy and encourages them to share more and more of
what is happening in their lives.
How often have you posted
a message or photo, in your facebook page and eagerly waited to see how many
‘likes’ you get? How happy where you
when you see that you have got a number of ‘likes’, for your post? It is a
common happening in everyone’s life. The more contacts in your facebook list, the
more chances for you of getting more likes. So, people keep expanding the list
of contacts by adding friends, friends of friends and so on.
The good part of
facebook, is that the majority of facebook users, could be categorized as, “The
Likers Club”.Likers are those who are not very active in posting, but whenever
they see a post on their wall they make sure to click the “Like” button.
Pressing the ‘Like’ button does not necessarily mean that they like the post.
It could just be a way of acknowledging that they have seen the post. So when this
happens, the person who made the post feels happy. The Likers are the cheer
bringers to the facebook world.
I was wondering how this
concept of LIKE, motivates people to share more about themselves with others.
This led me to a realization that people crave for recognition and they do not
seem to be getting enough of it from the real world. Facebook is in a way,
passively satisfying this need and this has to a great extent influenced the
number of people getting into this social world.
“Is it safe to make
friends with online strangers? Why should we make friends with people whom we
hardly know? Why do we need to create a virtual world of friends, when there
are so many friends in our real world? These sought of initial apprehensions
are swiftly fading away, as more and more people have started to enjoy being
‘liked’ and earn recognition on facebook.
The more they get recognized, the more they want to share and this keeps
growing.When you ‘like’ someone’s post, then the probability of you getting
‘like’ on your post to goes up. This is based on the law of “you scratch my back and I will scratch your
back”.
Now imagine extending
this likers club from the virtual world to a real world. Would the world not be
a much happier place to live in?While we are happily sharing our ‘likes’ on the
virtual world, what is stopping us from expressing our ‘likes’ in the real
world?
How often have we told
our mother or spouse that we liked the delicious food that they have made for
us? How often have we told our children, that we like their polite behaviour,
in a social gathering? How often have we told someone; I like your smile; I
like your dress; I like your style; I like the way you walk; I like the way you
express your thoughts, or something of that sort.
It is not that we don’t
like, but we rarely express our like. We
are quick to express our dislike for something, even if not by words, atleast
by our instant behaviour, but when it comes to expressing our like for
something, we are not so quick.
Thanks to Facebook, that
it has brought in the culture of expressing our LIKE. Let us not limit this
LIKE culture, only to our facebook circle but extend it to our near and dear
ones. It would not only make them glad, but also motivate them to do things
better.
Happy Reading,
Article Dated Nov 2013
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